Conservative immigration move branded scurrilous by Labour

THE Tories moved immigration to the top of the British election battle yesterday, in a move branded “ugly” and “scurrilous” by Labour.

As all three parties went back to full-throttle campaigning following a two-day lull due to the Pope’s funeral and the royal wedding, Conservative leader Michael Howard accused Labour of “playing fast and loose” with Britain’s national security by failing to get a grip on immigration. Speaking in the key marginal seat of Telford, Shropshire, Mr Howard said that Labour had been “pussyfooting around” with immigration during its two terms in office.

Immigration officials were being forced to turn a blind eye to illegal immigration, in order to keep down the official number of asylum-seekers and meet “meaningless” government targets, he claimed.

The system threatened not only to put public services in some parts of Britain under strain by adding an estimated 5 million to the population over the next 30 years, but to allow dangerous extremists into the country.

“This is... playing fast and loose with our security,” said Mr Howard. “We face a real terrorist threat in Britain today - a threat to our way of life, to our liberties. Yet we have absolutely no idea who’s coming into and leaving our country.”

Labour’s Peter Hain accused Mr Howard of “scurrilous, right-wing, ugly tactics”, while Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy said that the Tory proposal for an annual cap on asylum numbers would lead to a “much crueller Britain.” Former Tory MP Charles Wardle, who served as immigration minister when Mr Howard was Home Secretary, denounced Tory policies as “uncosted, unworkable and likely to make immigration and asylum problems worse not better.”